Misha 2% Speaks to the LA Times

Mikhail Kasyanov, or Misha 2% as he’s known in Russia, was interviewed in today’s LA Times. Kasyanov proves why that 2% moniker continues to stick. Like much of Russia’s self-described opposition, he has nothing to say that concerns Russians’ daily lives. Instead, he counterposes Russia with the “civilized world;” suggests Russia is a “totalitarian state,” and perhaps more insulting thinks that the Russian population are simply duped by propaganda. Here is one example,

How does Russia view the development of friendly relations between the United States and former Soviet republics such as Ukraine and Georgia?

The propaganda streaming today from television screens and newspaper pages is, in a simplified way, calling on the nation to rally together and to protect the motherland. Hinting that war is on the threshold, that the enemies are knocking on our gates and that Russia is surrounded by enemies who want to break Russia into pieces. The current authorities want the citizens to say, “Oh, thank God, anything but war.” They want to cover the problems they’ve created in the last few years . . . by alleging that evil forces surround Russia and dream of its destruction.

Luckily, Russia has Misha to speak the truth to the narod. In fact, it is his mission in life. A brave lone wolf in a forest of ignorance. “I consider it my job,” he declares, “to let people know what’s going on, because every day the number of people who can speak the truth and who are not afraid of doing so decreases.” Misha the Brave.

What strikes me is Misha’s political naivete toward the “people.” I almost reminds me of logic of Russian populists from the 19th century. Kasyanov says, “I claim that the current Russian authorities don’t enjoy the support of a majority of Russian citizens. As soon as conditions for daily propaganda disappear, Russian citizens will understand the essence of the current regime.” He may claim this all he wants, but he’s wrong. I think a more revolutionary position would be to freely admit that the authorities do have popular support and then ask yourself the hard question as to why. Citing propaganda and alleging Russia is a closed system is a cop out that only serves to embolden oppositionists’ own egotisical self-proclaimed victimhood. Alternatively, answers to the hard questions of where genuine popular support comes from could serve as a beginning for real politics. Sadly, many in Russia’s opposition rather be oppositionists in the abstract that speak “the truth” rather than doing the hard organizing to make that truth a reality.

Thursday morning, Moscow time, four Russian government officials came to the office of my English-language newspaper, the Exile, and conducted an “unplanned audit” of our editorial content. They are carrying out an inspection of my paper’s articles to see, in their words, if we have committed “violations.” And they specifically asked to question me, since I’m officially listed as the founding editor-in-chief.

I started up the Exile 11 years ago with a Russian publisher, and it grew into a kind of cult phenomenon, with an online readership of 200,000 visitors per month, launching the careers of Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi and the “War Nerd,” Gary Brecher, but ensuring that anyone who sticks with the paper is condemned to a life of poverty and paranoia.

In all my years I’d never heard of an “unplanned audit” of editorial content. The insiders whom I contacted all said, “It’s … strange.” That’s how my Russian lawyer reacted, it’s how an American official reacted, and it’s even how the head of the Glasnost Defense Fund reacted, even though his NGO focuses on problems between the Russian media and the Kremlin.

“As far as I know, there has never been a single Moscow-based media outlet which has been audited like this,” Glasnost’s lawyer told me. “We’ve seen a few of these in the far regions, but never Moscow. But really, don’t worry about it, Mark, I don’t think you’re in any personal danger at this point.”

I first learned of the government audit last week while I was out in California dealing with a family illness. I was already in a heightened state of paranoia at the time—one week in my native suburbia is all it takes to trigger panic attacks—so when the government sent notice of the “unplanned audit” to our office, my first thought was, “Can an American get political asylum in his own country?” Then I remembered some of the articles I’d written from Moscow—for example, my post–2004 U.S. presidential election editorial titled “Gas Middle America,” and how former U.S. congressman Henry Bonilla (R-TX) once used his office to pressure the Russian authorities into arresting me because of a prank I’d played—and the next thing I knew, I was rifling through my mother’s medicine cabinet looking for something strong to steal.

Eventually I calmed down and flew back to Moscow in time for the audit. At 11 a.m., four officials from the Federal Service for Mass Media, Telecommunications, and the Protection of Cultural Heritage arrived—the men in shabby Bolsheviki suits, and a squat middle-age woman with pudgy arms and hands that pinched the seams of her wrists. On the advice of a Russian attorney, we greeted them with a box of dark chocolates. It was solid advice, and probably did more to protect us than a hundred attorneys’ briefs could have.

Read on . . .

Post Views: 207

Related

Direct Line with Vladimir Putin seeks to solidify the personal bond between President and citizenry. Through a mix of national and local issues, Putin strives to measure the pulse of the nation, assure his people, and send signals to his subordinates. Often lampooned for its staginess, it’s a key component to Putin’s rule. Dismissing Direct Line as mere cultic spectacle undermines its symbolic value in constructing a unified national body. After all, the call-in show serves as one of the few national spaces where vlast and citizen and center and periphery are in, an albeit managed, dialog.

Nevertheless, the fact that it’s managed threatens to render Direct Line as a spectacular misfire. The pulse Putin is taking might not be that of the nation, but of his own. The audience’s effort to see its own concerns in Putin could cause misrecognition. The virtual binding of Russia’s vast geography might reveal its incongruity. And Putin’s many masks—commander-in-chief, erudite technocrat, the all-knowing, all-seeing eye, and compassionate Tsar-batiushka–could imprint that of an indifferent and out-of-touch ruler.

Basically, the effectiveness of Direct Line depends on whether it still resonates with viewers.

So does it?

The latest episode of Direct Line with Vladimir Putin aired late last month. The initial metrics were still impressive. The call center received over a mission questions. Putin set a new record for stamina: a four hour, forty-seven minute performance. He fielded 85 questions. Ratings remained high with up to 49%of the country tuning-in.

Now we have a better indication of viewer reception thanks to a recent VTsIOM survey. The results are ambiguous. Over half of Russian polled, 52%, still follow Direct Line in some capacity. But Putin remains mostly a star mostly among the old (67%) and residents in Moscow and St. Petersburg (62%) followed performance. Young people 18-24 years old (62%) are for the most part uninterested. In all, however, attention toward Putin’s call-in has been dropping since 2005:

When it comes to the issues, Putin remains salient. Forty-two percent of respondents still find the individual topics of interest. This has remained steady since 2005. Fifty-one percent felt satisfied with Putin’s overall discourse.

Things, however, get interesting when respondents were asked about topics. The results were polarized between the rising cost of housing (23%) and nothing (28%). Everything else scored in the single digits with many rating a single percent. The big national issues—the anti-corruption campaign, the country’s economic development, foreign policy, the street opposition and many others—unsurprisingly rated in the basement. Like pretty much everywhere else, the immediacy of everyday life matters to Russians the most.

But what does this say about the effectiveness of Direct Line? If VTsIOM’s poll is any indication, viewers still find spectacle of interest but attention is steadily falling with each episode. Viewers still tune in to hear what Putin has to say but more and more of his words are unmemorable. The national body is there but its various cells are mostly looking inward.

Reference
Lara Ryazanova-Clarke, “The Discourse of a Spectacle at the End of a Presidential Term,” in Helena Goscilo, Putin as Celebrity and Cultural Icon, Routledge, 2013.

Post Views: 253

Related

The results of the mayoral election in Sochi were as expected. United Russia’s candidate Anatoly Pakhomov won. No repeat of the Murmansk mayoral contest allowed. The losers, Solidarity’s Boris Nemtsov and the Communist Party candidate Yuri Dzaganiya, have already charged massive fraud, dirty campaign tricks, and use of a variety “administrative resources” to hoist Pakhomov to victory. Both candidates were systematically barred from local television, their billboards removed, and campaign literature confiscated. Local Sochi tv even smeared poor Nemtsov with a 20 minute film claiming he was a South Korean spy. And what dastardly plot was he hatching for the east Asian nation? Conspiring to move the Olympics to Seoul. As if.

Early voting served as the perfect opportunity for stuffing the box in favor of Pakhmonov. And if that wasn’t enough to tip the balance, then mobile poll buses were dispatched to the Abkhaz border. Last week, Sochi’s electoral committee ruled that citizens of Abkhazia with Russian passports and Sochi residency could cast ballots. As a result, this election is probably the one of first to make a serious effort to enfranchise the homeless.

There isn’t much more to say about a contest which began as a circus and closed with a magic show. Votes were made to disappear and reappear at the behest of the electoral committee’s magicians. Nothing says this more than the enormous gap between exit polls and the election results, viaEzhdnevnyi zhurnal:

The surveys of exist polls gave the following results: Pakhomov, the candidate from United Russia, 46 percent; Nemstov the candidate for Solidarity, 35 percent. In other words, a run off. Yuri Rykov, the head of the city electoral committee, offered entirely different figures to the court of public opinion. Pakhmonov – almost 78 percent, Nemtsov 13.5 percent.

One candidate had to score 50 percent to avoid a run off. United Russia wasn’t going to take a chance even if that meant making electoral fraud even more blatant than usual. After all, it ain’t called “managed democracy” for nothin’.